Team Sky should have waited for Alejandro Valverde, Jan Ullrich
The German Tour de France winner, Jan Ullrich has noted that Team Sky should have waited for Alejandro Valverde after his crash at stage 4 of the Vuelta a Espana 2012.
Valverde crashed in the final 20 kilometres of the race and rushed towards the British team’s bus after the race.
Former German cyclist and the Tour de France 1997 winner, Jan Ullrich is much used to the situation, most of which comes during the time he rode along Lance Armstrong.
The duo rode side by side on many occasions and has waited for each other several times in different occasions.
“In that kind of situation, you shouldn't keep going – especially when it has happened to the overall leader, It is to bad for Valverde – and I understand his anger,” Jan wrote on his
de.eurosport.yahoo.com blog.
“Sky had set up the echelon action well, and the attack had been started, when Valverde crashed”.
“But I would have expected that after a few kilometers the command to wait would come across on the radio”.
“But I don't think it had anything to do with antipathy. Valverde is actually well-liked in the field, and it was only a few teams which rode. Most of them were actually fair”.
Valverde finished the race almost two minutes behind the race leader and occupied the 39th overall position during the race.
Simon Clarke of Team Orica-GreenEdge occupied the top overall position at the race after his tremendous performance.
He crossed the finish line in an impressive time of 4 hours, 30 minutes and 26 seconds with Tony Martin of Team Omega Pharma-Quickstep finishing two seconds behind at the second position.
Assan Bazayev of Team Astana, Marcos Garcia of Team Caja Rural and Nicholas Roche of Team AG2R La Mondiale claimed the third, the fourth and the fifth positions in the respective order.
Top ten teams after the Vuelta a Espana stage 4 classifications are as under,
1
Rabobank Cycling Team
39:19:14
2
SKY Procycling
0:00:03
3
Astana Pro Team
0:01:55
4
Katusha Team
0:02:04
5
Lampre - ISD
0:02:13
6
Euskaltel - Euskadi
0:02:39
7
AG2R La Mondiale
0:03:00
8
Movistar Team
0:03:38
9
Radioshack - Nissan
0:04:01
10
Caja Rural
0:04:57
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